The Man in the Window: Nancy Pearl's Book Lust

Since he was disfigured in a fire sixteen years ago, recluse Louis Malone has remained hidden from the prying eyes of his neighbors in the small town of Waverly. Across town, Iris Shula, a lonely and unlovely nurse knows, at thirty-seven, it is unlikely that her Prince Charming will ever appear. But Iris is about to learn how wrong she is. When Louis accidently falls out of his second story window these two kindred souls are brought together. What unfolds is a most unlikely love story.

The Girls from the Five Great Valleys: Nancy Pearl's Book Lust

Determined to climb the social ladder in Missoula, Montana, Hilary knows appearances are crucial to getting ahead - but she’s in for a rude awakening. With a rough home life, Doll seeks every chance she can to escape and hang out with one of the local bad boys, but her need to be noticed may land her in serious trouble. Janet hasn’t inherited the smarts of her doctor father, but she’s content to let life lead her rather than grab the steering wheel. Kathy’s the smartest of the group, but her know-it-all attitude can be a real turnoff.

The Lion in the Lei Shop: A Novel

A dramatic chapter of American history comes vividly to life in this evocative tale of a mother and daughter navigating the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor. On a beautiful December day, young Marty Langsmith’s life explodes into flames. Evacuated with her mother, April, to the mainland, Marty’s new world is haunted by nightmares of the lion in the lei shop, a creature fabricated by a neighbor that’s said to devour happy children. Meanwhile April, powerless to shield her daughter from the devastation of the Japanese attack and the uncertainty of life without her deployed army father, is caught between her longing for the past and her hope for the future.

The Cowboy and the Cossack: A Nancy Pearl's Book Lust Rediscovery

Fifteen Montana cowboys and 500 longhorns are embarking on a one-of-a-kind Wild West adventure: a cattle drive across 1,000 miles of Siberia. The clash of cultures between East and West, American six shooter and Russian saber, begins immediately when a band of Cossacks arrives to escort them to their destination. Cowboys and Cossacks must work together or they’ll never survive the journey, which includes a meeting with the warrior Genghis Kharlagawl and his army of bloodthirsty Tartars.

One Minus One: Nancy Pearl's Book Lust

Capturing in rich detail the freewheeling '60s, One Minus One explores a young woman’s journey toward self-realization following a painful divorce. In 1969, 30-year-old Emily Bean moves to a town in New Hampshire’s coastal region to take a job as a high-school teacher. Struggling with the challenges of single life and still in love with her ex-husband, David, Emily attracts the attention of local radio personality Warren, and also Cliff, the head of the high-school English department, who might perhaps take David’s place in her life.

Fool

"For Christ sake don’t become a fluffmeister," are the last words Barnaby Griswold gets from his father. But despite trying to turn out otherwise, Barnaby knows himself a fool and already makes his living as a fluffmeister, as a puffer-up of investments. Well-bred, more or less educated, friendly to everyone, Barnaby is in fact foolishly successful. Until he blows it all. At 46, disgraced and broke and lonely, Barnaby must repair his life. Maybe, just maybe, he’ll find out that doing the foolish thing can lead to redemption.

After Life: A Novel

For Naomi Ash, growing up the daughter of a clairvoyant medium exposed her to the chicanery of a business where telling people what they want to hear is the only currency. And the sleepy hamlet of Train Line, New York, nestled against a frigid lake in the westernmost fringes of the state, was founded on, built, and is still sustained by it. Now a young woman and a practicing medium herself, Naomi still lives in the place that nourished and raised her - the place where she fell in love. Love, however, can be deadly....

Plum & Jaggers: Nancy Pearl's Book Lust Rediscoverie

For the McWilliams children, life is forever altered the day a terrorist bomb blast rips through the train carrying them across Italy, instantly killing their parents. Dazed and frightened, Charlotte, Oliver, and baby Julia cling to oldest brother Sam, who - only seven at the time - is haunted by every detail.

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry: A Novel

Elsa is seven years old and different. Her grandmother is 77 years old and crazy, standing-on-the-balcony-firing-paintball-guns-at-men-who-want-to-talk-about-Jesus crazy. She is also Elsa's best and only friend. At night Elsa takes refuge in her grandmother's stories, in the Land of Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas, where everybody is different and nobody needs to be normal.

Travels with Charley in Search of America

In September 1960, John Steinbeck and his poodle, Charley, embarked on a journey across America, from small towns to growing cities to glorious wilderness oases. Travels with Charley is animated by Steinbeck’s attention to the specific details of the natural world and his sense of how the lives of people are intimately connected to the rhythms of nature—to weather, geography, the cycles of the seasons. His keen ear for the transactions among people is evident, too, as he records the interests and obsessions that preoccupy the Americans he encounters along the way.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

In the grotesque bell-ringer Quasimodo, Victor Hugo created one of the most vivid characters in classic fiction. Quasimodo's doomed love for the beautiful gypsy girl Esmeralda is an example of the traditional love theme of beauty and the beast. Yet, set against the massive background of Notre Dame de Paris and interwoven with the sacred and secular life of medieval France, it takes on a larger perspective.

The Woman in White

One of the greatest mystery thrillers ever written, Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White was a phenomenal best seller in the 1860s, achieving even greater success than works by Charles Dickens. Full of surprise, intrigue, and suspense, this vastly entertaining novel continues to enthrall audiences today.

Publisher's Summary

The charming, and not entirely trustworthy, unnamed narrator of The Last Night at the Ritz invites three friends to join her for lunch at the elegant Ritz-Carlton in Boston to celebrate her birthday. Two of them, Gay and Len, are a long-married couple and her best friends from college. The third, Wes, was once her lover.

As the afternoon gives way to evening and as the drinks flow, the past and present intrude upon the festivities and the atmosphere turns somber. Before the night is through, truths and secrets slip out that will change their relationships forever.

Back in print for the first time in a generation, The Last Night at the Ritz, a masterfully written novel of friendship and love and the ways we deceive each other and ourselves, is quite simply unforgettable.

The reader, Janet Metzger, got just the right tone for the unnamed first person narrator, who has a witty, devil may care attitude even in the face of tragedy.

What does Janet Metzger bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

The sassy, witty tone that permeates the narration. I don't think I would have gotten it in quite the same way if I had read the book instead of listening. She has a flip way of expressing herself like when her friend is talking about her grandparents' graves and the narrator says, "I thought we were here to have fun."

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

When the narrator gives advice to Charlie, her best friend's son. Also, when her friend says if she won't sleep with her boyfriend someone else will and we suspect that she knows that the narrator has done so.

I have no idea how to explain this book. It’s about everything and nothing. A woman and her friends go out for drinks and dinner and through flashbacks we learn about her life.

Sounds boring put that way, but it wasn’t! I liked this woman very much and “enjoyed her company” so to speak. I also enjoyed the fact that it was set in Boston – I went for the first time last December and really enjoyed it; since it’s still fresh in my mind it was easy to picture the story… never mind that it’s set in the 60s.

Janet Metzger reads this timeless novel at perfect pitch. The book itself is of course a wonderful peace of social study with insights into peoples motivations and reasoning with such clever honesty that it is as current now as it was then. The forword is personal and gives an intimate angle to the Janet's reason for liking the book

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